There have been proposed various methods for preventing misuse of software. One of the methods commonly used in recent years is that a personal computer (PC) or the like communicates with a license registration device to obtain a license for use of software at the time of installation of the software on the PC.
There may be a case where a user who purchased software and obtained a license for the software sells the software as secondhand software to a different user. There is proposed a method to issue a license for use of such secondhand software on a PC in an on-line state.